8

I sleep too well and resent the waking. The weather has changed. I can hear the wind, and smell the sea’s new mood.

‘We need to get going’ Marcus tells me, pulling back a blind, ‘or the chopper won’t be able to take off.’

Or the chopper won’t be able to take off. I live in this world now, where people say these things, and they fall as naturally as or the dairy will be closed. I know it isn’t real, not in the solid way of lasting that real worlds have. I could blink, or turn away, and it would be gone. But that is for later. First there is a chopper to deal with.

‘There’s something beautiful about a storm,’ Lucinda says as we rise up through the weather. Beneath us, the Strait is ripped into white caps. We fade into cloud.

‘Been in a helicopter before?’ Marcus asks me. I shake my head.

‘Not thinking of making me jump out of it are you?’ I ask, only half joking. I am tired this morning. Tired of being watched, keeping all the fear and uncertainty from their view. But I want to win this. I want to be the most together, the most impressive. I want to be the one they talked about last night. I want the low bass of conversation that vibrated through the wall, before I fell asleep, to have been about me. The helicopter rattles through me. Marcus smiles.

‘Would you?’

‘Whether you gave me a parachute.’

‘That’s reasonable.’

Later. The helicopter has outrun the weather and the view below is clear. We fly over snow. Somewhere on the central plateau, I suppose. I watch our shadow slide across the white ground.

‘So how are you feeling?’ Lucinda asks, breaking 20 minutes of silence.

‘Alright,’ I reply. It’s like being a tourist, struggling with the language. Watching for any sign that might help with the meaning.

‘Ready for another test?’

‘I guess,’ I shrug.

‘Good on you.’

The helicopter touches down and we are nowhere. The mountain that minutes before had spread across the sky has somehow disappeared. The landscape is ragged, rendered in black and white, a jumble of rocks and tightly gnarled tree trunks, calmed by thick, untouched snow. There is no building that I can see; no track, no sign of life. I am not dressed for this, but Lucinda climbs out, then Marcus, and I follow their lead. Marcus carries a small bag on his shoulder. Apart from that it is just us.

The sound of the helicopter lifting off behind me isn’t mentioned.

‘A little,’ I admit.

‘Best we get moving then.’

Maybe it’s too much reality television, one too many episodes of Survivor, but I trust them. Trust this. Some time, no matter what the script demands of me, the cameras will stop rolling. The helicopter will return. This is the thought I take with me as I lift my knees high to avoid the snow sucking the strength from my legs.

Lucinda leads the way. I follow in their ice-crunched footsteps to make it easier. We walk quickly. The air is thin and I feel it cold and sharp in my lungs. We go 30 minutes by my watch. I’m checking all the time, noting every landmark, convinced that their plan is to run off and leave me, to see how I cope. And I wouldn’t mind. Not if it was my chance to show them. Not if it meant winning.

I notice the steam before we reach the pool. It is fed by a small stream running dark and clear over volcanic rock. Maybe three metres across, a natural spa with snow packed high about its walls; all around icicles dripping slowly into the water. Chance is a fine architect. We stand, all three of us, thinking the same simple thoughts. It’s a been a morning without words and this is not the place to break the silence.

I watch Marcus remove his shoes and slowly dip a foot into the steaming water. He turns to me and smiles. Another shoe comes off. Then his trousers. I am standing right beside Lucinda, who keeps her eyes on Marcus, gives nothing away. Marcus turns his back on us. The jacket comes off, a jersey and then his shirt. He moves forward, tests the water again, steps back, drops his boxers, stands naked in the snow. I think I want to look like that. I think am I expected to go next? And I think don’t think anything. Don’t say anything. This is a test. Don’t get it wrong. Marcus wades into the pool, until he is in past his knees. He turns to us and eases slowly backwards, blurring in the steam.

‘You’ll love this,’ Lucinda says to me. Then she is undressing, and so am I, because there is no way out of this. Sometimes the distinction is sharp, between having no choice and having no power. If I could talk to my guardian angel, if I could beg its cooperation, then this is what I would ask it to arrange.

Lucinda walks in first and I follow her every step. My breathing and thinking and feeling have all turned to haze. She hesitates at the water, getting used to the heat of it. I stop, only a metre behind, and look, and smile, and think she is naked. Exactly like that, those three words. ‘What are you thinking?’ people sometimes ask. I think they’d be disappointed, by how simple it can be.

The water is hot. I stand on one foot, then the other. Lucinda moves forward, and like Marcus turns back to me at the last minute, before relaxing backwards into the water. And you know where I look, and you know what I think. Again. She pulls herself across to Marcus, turns and laughs. I am fighting to keep my balance, exposed, and they are laughing. It feels wonderful, in the strangest, oldest way.

‘Just get in,’ Marcus laughs.

‘It’s hot,’ I reply, then stumble forward, feeling the angry rash of heat race up my body.

I sit across from them, at a distance where our feet would touch, were we to stretch them out. The steam softens their faces. We spend ten minutes soaking without talking. Light snow begins to fall. I sink further into the water and feel the sharp stinging cold on my head. I notice how slowly each flake falls, but when I let my focus melt they seem to all come down in a rush. You can’t trust your brain.

‘Good isn’t it?’ Lucinda says. Not a question. I nod. Not an answer.

‘So this isn’t the test I don’t suppose.’ I say. They look at each other. The time has come. For what I don’t know, but there is enough in the glance to tell me it is important. Relaxation leaves my body slowly, from the head down.

‘What did you think, Pete,’ Lucinda asks me, ‘when you first met us?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, didn’t it seem strange to you?’

‘Of course. I said so. I said you had the wrong person.’

‘Yeah,’ she continues, still smiling, still naked. Her body, distorted by the water, seems to shimmer and float up towards me. I am hardly listening. Maybe this is enough. Maybe when it comes time to think about dying, and wondering what I have done with my life, this will be enough. How many people will have a moment like this on their list?

‘But did it seem strange, a scholarship like this, with all these tests?’

‘Of course it did.’

‘So why did you believe us?’ she asks.

I try to think about that, but we’re warm and naked, and I want to stay like this forever, or maybe take the odd break, to tell other people. It makes it hard not to be a believer.

‘Well, why would you lie?’ I say. ‘I mean, I can understand someone lying about it, but not going to all this trouble. It all must have cost a lot of money right? That must have come from somewhere.’

And you’re beautiful, I might have added. Rich and beautiful, so why wouldn’t I believe you?

They smile, like parents at Christmas, when there’s one last surprise for the child to open.

She looks at him. He looks at her. Marcus takes up the story.

‘How would you feel if I told you you’ve won?’ I battle the grin but can’t stop it spreading. Goofy and uncool.

‘What does sort of mean?’

‘Some of the details, we couldn’t reveal them earlier.’

‘What like?’

A loaded silence, not so much pregnant as infected.

‘There were never any other candidates.’ Marcus tells me. ‘It’s just you. We’ve only been testing you.’

I look at the faces, one at a time, for clues. There’s nothing there.

‘So why all the challenges?’

‘We needed to see if you were worthy.’

‘Worthy of what?’

‘Rescuing.’

I want Lucinda to tell the rest. There’s something down in my stomach, a knot that feels like the beginning of fear. I want her to talk. I want her to make it go away.

‘Pete.’ She gets the message. ‘What we’re going to tell you now is going to seem a little weird, but you have to understand we’re your friends. If you let us help you, the way we want to, you’re going to come out of this very, very well. You got lucky, Pete, when you met us, in ways you can’t even imagine. Do you believe in fate?’

I did, once. I shake my head.

‘What’s going on?’ I ask.

‘Most of what we told you is true. We noticed you, well our employer did, when you pulled that stunt at PBs. And the website, and the protest. And we’ve been instructed to reward you, with a contract worth a hundred and fifty thousand dollars over the next three years. But there are other things too, which are important. But before I tell you, I need to know something.’

She lifts off the bank, pushes herself gently forward so her face is floating somewhere above my knees.

‘Do you trust me?’ she asks.

I look into her eyes, and they’re too big and clear and beautiful to doubt.

‘Yeah,’ I tell her. ‘I do.’

Her smile starts at the eyes and spreads down as far as I dare to look. She holds my stare, breathes slowly out, drifts back to Marcus’s side. He’s smiling too. If there was champagne, this would be the time to uncork it. I am elated, high on my own ignorance. Part of me doesn’t want to know the rest. This feels good enough. It will do.

‘Okay. We know something else about you, Pete. We know you broke into the PBs’ computers. We know what you saw. We took the computer, Pete, we’ve been through your files.’

I am vaguely aware I should be frightened. My calmness takes me by surprise. Perhaps I do. Perhaps I really trust her. ‘You stole my computer?’

‘Not personally,’ she smiles.

Marcus tags in. ‘You can understand, I’m sure, how anxious they were for it never to get out, the things you read. I doubt you can understand what sort of money we’re talking here, Pete, or what that sort of money, that sort of international power, can do.’ He sees my face drain, wiped cold. ‘No, don’t worry Pete. You’re okay. We’re here to help, that’s why you’re okay. It’s the only reason.’

‘I won’t lie though. It got close. Extremely close. When people like this feel threatened, the first thing they ask is ‘how much could this cost us?’ Then they ask ‘how can we stop it?’ then they ask, ‘what are the risks?’ Then they make a plan. They don’t ask, ‘what’s the right thing to do?”

Lucinda’s turn.

‘People have gone to war over lesser amounts of money. There are a hundred ways they could crush you, and believe me, they talked about all of them. The one they favoured, when we were called in, was at least legal. Take you to court, sue you, bankrupt you and your family for life, take out an order against you ever speaking about any of it, making sure you understood prison would be the result of cheating on the agreement. It’s a solid, standard response, in most circumstances, the one favoured by those who are rich enough to be sure the court will turn their way. But with you they were worried.

‘You’re younger than most of the people they deal with. And there’s that thing we all remember about being young. When you’re young you take risks, you’re unpredictable. You’re not always looking far enough ahead to worry about the implications. There had to be the danger, if we put the pressure on a person like you, that you’d raise a single finger at us, just because you could. Stare us down, shout “bring it on”.’

They are watching me carefully, trying perhaps to read my reactions. But there’s nothing for them to see. I’m blank, inside and out. Hearing the words, but making no sense of them. It must be shock.

‘We were brought in to check out what sort of risk you might be,’ Marcus tells me. ‘Basically, how much of a loose canon you were. That’s our job. We’re consultant psychologists. We specialise in reading people, predicting which way they’ll jump. And you know what, and we both agree on this, you’re one of the most interesting people either of us has ever seen.’

PBs. They work for PBs. It comes out of nowhere, hits me hard, a blow to the guts. I can’t just sit here and listen, can I? Surely I can’t just sit here and listen. It feels like I’m about to cry, but I won’t let that happen. I swallow it down. What would Jennifer do? That’s what I think. She’s my big sister. She’s the one I trust. Phone a friend please, I want to say. I want to talk to her. I want to get her advice.

It was Jennifer who first told me what pain feels like. It was Jennifer who prepared me for this moment.

She was 16 then, and used to thank me for being such a good listener. But a 14-year-old boy is well suited to listening, when it’s a 16-year-old girl doing the talking. Even your sister. I remember it clearly; straight off I knew it was one of those things worth hanging on to. We used to have table tennis down in the basement, where the PlayStation is now. Me and her’d talk for hours, with the hollow rhythm of our shots marking out the time. I’d seen her cry before, but that was different crying. Angry tears, frustrated tears, emotional, don’t-need-a-reason tears. This night I asked her how she was and she said, ‘Let’s just play a game.’ She was vicious in the first and beat me by seven (memory you see, it knows what it’s doing). So we played a second, and I got vicious too. It was 19-all and I was arguing a serve (it was off the side and she knew it) when the crying started. Big, painful tears that pulled on her shoulders, up and down in time, like she was a puppet that couldn’t get started.

Fourteen-year-old boys don’t get so much, but I knew enough to stop arguing about the serve and then, when the tears kept flowing, to walk around the table and give her an awkward hug and a painful smile, to sit down and shut up and let her take it from there. It didn’t take so long for the story to get going. She had a boyfriend who was older than her, 19 and out of school, working at a service station and spending his spare time polishing his car and having sex with her. I don’t think, if I had a little brother, I’d tell him stuff like that. Gary was his name, and Mum and Dad didn’t know about him. A week before Jennifer’d told me she thought she might be in love with him. She even tried to explain how it felt, to have everything solid inside you turn liquid and uncertain, but I didn’t really get it.

‘He’s a bastard, Pete. A total arsehole.’

I knew that already. You could see it in the way he checked his reflection in his bonnet, and refused to pick her up from school, even when it was raining, because he didn’t want to be seen hanging round there, and the way he changed plans on her at the last minute, without ever apologising.

The story wasn’t all that surprising. Another girl, called Cindy, was there that afternoon, at his flat, when Jennifer wagged chemistry to go visiting. I tried not to be distracted when she told me she found them naked. I tried to focus on the pain of it. The shock, she called it. The looking and not wanting to see. Holding arguments with your eyes, your ears, while chemicals do all they can to deaden the nerves. Your screaming and swearing sounds like it’s coming from someone else’s mouth, in a room next door, and the look on his face, indignant that you should be there at all, is a slowed down cartoon. That’s the way she told it, and now, four years later, it makes some sort of sense. Lucinda is looking at me. I’m not hiding it well.

Gary told Jennifer the other woman meant nothing. He said they’d been drinking. He said he was sorry. He told her he loved her, and for half an hour she believed him. We are genetically similar, Jennifer and me, so Lucinda has about 23 minutes left by my count, to convince me my world isn’t crumbling.

‘See, you’re not a destroyer, Pete,’ she tells me. ‘You’re angry, sure, but who isn’t? You’re angry right now. I can see that. And so would I be, if I hadn’t heard the full story. But you know what you’ve got, that makes you different? You know what we thought we saw in you? A brain that thinks past the packaging, doesn’t buy the bullshit. And you’ve got the balls to walk that brain forward, which is a rare and dangerous combination. Let me tell you two things okay, and then I’m going to shut up and you can ask all the questions you want. But listen to both these things very, very carefully.

‘First, some would say there are two types of people in the world: those who buy into the cheap anaesthetic of consumerism, who stand dribbling before the counters of instantly forgettable culture, the masses; and those who know better, who disapprove, who resist and protest. The elite. Well, I believe in two types of people too. Clever people and stupid people. And only stupid people think any other distinction matters. There’s no difference between those two groups at all. Unthinking is unthinking, either way. They were scared you’d bought into it, the whole thoughtless, anti-everything protest, but I just had a feeling you were better than that. We both did. There’s a type of person, and I’m that person and I think you are too. A person who thinks for themselves.

‘Yes, I work for PBs sometimes, and that’s got to seem weird to you. Maybe even disgusting to you, but think about that for a second. I don’t believe PBs is destroying civilisation, and I don’t believe it’s saving it either. It’s just a burger, you know what I mean, and not even a very good one. So if you’re hungry and you’re nearby and there’s nothing decent on offer, then eat one. And if you’re so lazy and undiscerning that you’re going to make a lifestyle out of it, then it won’t be the burger that kills you, it’ll be your own relentless stupidity. There’s nothing noble in trying to free people from consumerism, because if you look around, I think you’ll agree a lot of consumerism is fairly fucken cool. What most people need freeing from is themselves. Why aren’t we reading more? Why don’t we get out and see our world? Why aren’t we interested in all that has gone before? Why does change scare us? Why don’t we tell other people what we really think of them?’

I should resist it. She’s right. I’m not stupid. I’ve never been stupid. So I should resist it. But it’s beautiful here, warm in the snow in the middle of nowhere; and she’s beautiful too, and she’s still talking, and some of what she says I like. I should resist.

‘…and the other thing I want to tell you; it’s about the file you saw. It’s not how it looks. It was a set-up. We weren’t trying to catch you. It’s a long story, but lately our biggest opposition seems to have been hearing about our new ideas even before we have. We’re pretty sure there’s someone in the company, sharing information across, and we think we know who it is. The file you read, about the weight research, it’s bogus. We put it in a place where only he could find it. If it made it to our source in the opposition’s company, we’d know. That was the plan anyway, before you came along.’

‘So why worry about me, if it’s all so bogus?’ I ask. I’m not stupid. I tell myself that. Bite my lip, press my back into the cold snow, concentrate on not being taken in.

‘It was never going to be released by the competition. It’s the sort of thing that would take the whole industry down. And we planned to let them know, straight away, once we had their man. It’s not like you might imagine, between the companies. Deals are done. There was never any risk. But someone like you, someone who already has a reputation, you could get it straight into the media, and it wouldn’t matter what sort of evidence we gave then, there’d be enough people who would never believe the story. Half the world still believes we never landed on the moon for God’s sake. Facts don’t win arguments. Look at you now. You know us, and you still don’t know what to believe. We couldn’t take the risk.’

Which could be true. Isn’t true, I tell myself. Could be true, the voice comes back. I wait for more. But they are waiting too. Watching me, as if this next bit they don’t have planned. But I don’t believe that.

‘So, how are you feeling?’ Lucinda asks me. And if you’d just come in at this moment, if you didn’t know any better, you’d think she really cared.

‘How do you think I’m feeling?’ I say, and there’s a satisfying snarl to it. Pissed Off, an old friend who knows when he’s needed, is coming back home to Pete.

‘A lot of things, I’m guessing. Distrust: if I was you, I’d definitely be feeling that. Anger, betrayal, confusion, cynicism. Take me through it. We’re for real, Pete. This is for real. Ask me any questions. Anything you want. Don’t just sit there looking like that. You’re better than that. If you want to know the truth, just ask for it.’

‘When did you come up with this plan then?’

‘What plan?’

‘To pretend there was a scholarship.’

‘As soon as I saw the website. When they showed me that I knew it would be wrong to push you.’

‘And what happens, if I tell you to fuck off?’

‘I won’t lie to you, Pete. You do that and we’ve failed. And this isn’t the sort of company that believes in second chances. We’re off the job and they set about destroying you. And they’re good at it, believe me.’

‘Maybe I don’t give a shit.’

‘Maybe you don’t. But the tests suggest otherwise, Pete. Look, let’s stop pissing around here. I’ll tell you some things I know about you, shall I? Your IQ comes in at 154, which makes you a borderline genuis, but for some reason you’ve never made anything of it at school. Your personality profile tells me you’re independent, you don’t like doing what people tell you, you want to think for yourself, do things your own way. But you’re seventeen. You don’t know what that way is, most of the time. It also tells me you’re open-minded, you’re excited by new ideas. You think on your feet, you’re articulate, you’ve got more self-control than anyone I’ve ever met, and you’re not scared of anyone. You know what that makes you? It makes you a very, very powerful sports car stuck in city traffic. And either you’re going to get out of there real soon, or you’re going to overheat, meltdown, and no one’s ever going to know what you were capable of.

‘You ever feel like that, Pete? You ever feel trapped? You ever feel the world closing in? I don’t want to say this next bit, because it’ll sound trite and false and that pisses me off, because it isn’t. I actually mean it. I don’t need PBs. I have immunity from their shit. They’re just one gig for me. I have other work. If you take them down or you don’t, ten minutes after the storm dies down, another one will spring up to take their place. No one cares. But I’m not letting you get out of this pool without explaining yourself because I care about what happens to you. Jesus, Pete, you know how often I meet people like you? Not often enough. And look at me, believe me, please. I’ve been there. I’ve been you. So this is sort of personal to me.’

‘What do you want from me?’ I ask.

‘I want you to spend a little more time thinking about this, before you decide where to point all that Pissed Off you’re carrying. You going to do that?’

‘It’s getting sort of hot in here.’

‘So sit up on the snow. You’ll cool down soon enough.’

She moves first. Hauls herself up on the side, so she’s sitting on a rock. She leans back, stretches out onto the snow. I watch.

Marcus looks to the sky.

‘I should call in the chopper. The weather feels like it’s changing.’

‘Get the laptop, when it comes in,’ Lucinda tells him.

‘If there’s time.’

Marcus gets up, walks across the pool. He takes a towel from the bag, throws on his clothes, disappears past the steam. I follow Lucinda’s lead, lean back against the snow. I can feel the whiteness of it. Pure keen energy transfer. My skin stings, my head clears with the cold. I can think again, and choose to think nothing. This is how it works. This is the way we face our biggest decisions. Eyes closed, brain turned off, instincts groping a way forward through the fog. She’s right. I’m not like them. I’m not like the others.

I’m cold now. I sink slowly back into the water. It’s magic. Just me and her. Unfolding one picture at a time. I’m memorising every one of them. I float across so she’s above me, still half out of the water. I feel her leg against the top of my arm. The lightest bump. I’m here, is all it says. I’ve noticed.

‘You alright?’ she asks.

She moves back down into the water. Shoulder to shoulder now.

‘I don’t want to tell you what to do. I just don’t want you get hurt, that’s all. Do you really hate them that much?’

‘Nah, not really.’

‘But you hate the idea of them telling you what to do.’

‘I get that. But look, some fights aren’t worth having. You’ve got a lot of years left, a lot of good fights still to have. They can destroy you. Please believe that. Or you can ignore them, treat them like they don’t matter so much either way. That’s what I do. And then, when I’m sure I don’t much care, that’s when I can start using them.’

The decision comes in an instant. It starts in the stomach, so fuck knows what the brain’s really for. Not the stomach exactly. I think it’s the thigh this time, the point where our bodies meet. My skin is making my decisions for me. And when I speak the words they sound so right it makes me feel powerful.

‘So what should I do?’

She hugs me. I hug her back. Hot in the middle of an icy nowhere. Souls, who needs them? We’re not like that. We’re different, Lucinda and me.

Marcus appears on cue. He doesn’t ask how it’s gone. I can hear the helicopter getting closer.

‘No time for the slide show,’ he tells us. ‘Weather’s closing in. We can see it back at the homestead. Come on.’

He passes us towels. We dress quickly and lift back out into the world just as the wind begins to raise its objections.

The champagne is dry on my tongue. I don’t like it much, the taste is wrong. I wait for the second hit, the sweetness I’m used to, but it teases me with its bubbles and disappears. I like the feel of it though. The lightness of this moment. The confident hold of the leather couch, the certainty of belonging. The perfect position to launch a smile. Marcus walks across to me and fills my glass. Not the first time. It’s late afternoon. We haven’t talked much since returning.

‘Ready for the video then?’ he asks me.

‘What’s it of?’

‘Just a little advertising campaign they’re thinking of running. You’re in it.’

‘If you agree. It’s a whole series. You’re the last one. We’ve just used an actor for now, to give the idea. See what you think.’

He dances out an instruction on the keyboard in front of him and the huge flat screen on the opposite wall comes to life.

There’s a guy I recognise, a Green Party politician, dreads and a scooter. He wheels into view, eyeballs the camera.

‘Yeah,’ he says with a smile. ‘I’ve been known to be at the occasional party where a joint’s been passed my way. But if you were there, and you chose to say no, that’d be fine by me too. Each to their own, you know?’

And his face breaks into dimples as he scoots way. The camera pulls back and we see the Beehive behind him.

DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO runs across the screen. There’s music too. I don’t quite get it. But I like it. There’s something about it. A sort of quiet, cheerful, fuck you.

Next ad’s a discus thrower, big Samoan woman, towelling the sweat off in a gym. A little blonde bimbo type sucking on a water bottle walks past. The athlete watches her, smiles. It’s a beautiful smile, the sort a whole country feels proud of.

‘Yeah,’ she tells the camera. ‘I see all types in here. Skinny little white girls who live on water. You don’t want to touch them in case they snap. Still, their choice, right. Me, I quite like eating.’ She shrugs and picks up a dumbbell, and you just know it weighs more than the white girl. I want to see it. I want to see her snap one of them. DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO.

A third ad, and it’s just as smooth. A guitarist down at the beach, sun shining. Strumming away. Good looking, a twinkle in his eye when the camera arrives.

‘I like Sunday evenings best. That’s when the other bastards all go back to their jobs.’ We pull back to see where he’s looking. A line of big Australian cars, pulling their boats back home, the families looking back longingly, already starting to sweat. Back to the guitarist.

‘Me, I get to stay here. I’m an artist you see, that’s what what it says on my file, down at Income Support. Not so much work out this way. Still, I’m getting by, you know?’

He laughs. Leans back. Strums some more. A long shot shows him silhouetted against the sunset. Yeah, they’ve got me. I want to be him.

DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO.

Number four is an endurance athlete, up on a mountain in the rain, sucking it in. He stares into the camera, high on something. Grins just as the rain turns to hail.

‘Okay, so some people spend their weekends on the couch. That’s their business right?’

We pull back. He’s alone on top of the ridge. We see him running along, happier than anyone needs to be. Insane, sure, but happy.

DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO.

Then there’s my ad. They’ve chosen an actor who looks the part. Better-looking than me, I guess, but I can fake it. Hoodie up, standing in the street, package in his hand. Close up. It’s a Prince burger. He pulls back the wrapper, looks at it. Looks up at the camera. Grins.

‘Some people like these things apparently. And that’s their business really, don’t you think?’

And he throws the burger back over his shoulder, without looking, and it lands in the bin on the other side of the road.

PBs. DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO.

‘They’re just roughs, of course. We’ll make you look better than that. One fifty up front. No other obligations. It’s good isn’t it?’

So I get to look cool, and get the money to back it up. And they’re both there willing me on, the two people in all the world I want to be like. I’m a little drunk. This isn’t a good way to make decisions. I breathe in, try to slow it down, think through this thing clearly. Is this where everything was leading? A nut-off in a burger queue, and some freak setting up a website, a protest gone wrong, and a brain that doesn’t know when to go quiet. Is this why my guardian angel got so excited, on that very first day? Has it been here all along? Has it known exactly what it was doing?

Or have they outsmarted me, headed me off? Is this the way it’s meant to be, or the way they want it to be? And who the hell is ‘they’ anyway, and why can’t it be both? And why shouldn’t I be rich and cool and famous? Who said I couldn’t have it all? Why am I even thinking about feeling guilty?

‘So?’ says Lucinda. Her hand is on my leg, bringing me back to the room.

‘Do you want it?’

Is that really the question? Of course I want it. Who wouldn’t want it?

‘Yeah, I want it.’

Her face breaks in to the prettiest smile. I feel my smile giving it back.

‘They wanted to bankrupt your family and we got you this. Aren’t you going to thank us?’

‘Haven’t said I’m doing it yet,’ I tell her.

‘Not saying you have to,’ she replies.

‘Thanks though.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Good on you, Pete. I knew they had you wrong. Time to celebrate.’ Marcus stands, grabs another bottle, rips off the foil.

‘Just before we do that,’ Lucinda says, cautioning him with her hand, ‘there’s one more thing we need to clear up.’

‘What’s that?’ he asks. ‘Oh, right. Forgot.’

‘What is it?’ I ask.

‘Well,’ Lucinda says, ‘you’ll remember we took your computer, well they did, the company. And your files were examined.’

‘Yeah.’ I don’t see where it’s going. Blame the alcohol.

‘We know you had help, getting into the site.’

‘I didn’t.’ An instinctive reply. A block. Deny, buy time. It’s a simple rule.

‘Pete, we know you did. We’ve read the emails.’

‘Of what?’ I ask.

‘You know.’

‘I don’t.’

And a strange thing happens. She hesitates. These two, they never hesitate. Lucinda’s uncertainty screams out like a boil on the face of a supermodel. It gives me confidence. Confidence to slow down, think this through. I try to remember how much of it was on email, how much we talked in his chat room. Mostly it was the chat room. Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s the bit they couldn’t access. There’s not much I know about Rob, but I trust his computer skills. They know a little, they probably know a person like him might exist, but it’s not enough. They haven’t been able to work it out. I feel a weird sort of thrill run through me, a readiness for battle. What does it mean, I ask myself, that Rob exists? What does it mean to them, what does it mean to me? They’re looking at me, waiting for me to say something more. I can bluff this. It’s like they say themselves. I’m not stupid. I don’t say a word.

‘Pete,’ Marcus starts. For the first time I notice how often they use my name when they speak to me. Teachers do that too, and telemarketers. ‘Last night, when I asked you to shut down the computer, you couldn’t.’

‘It’s not a system I know. I was tired.’

‘It’s hardly complicated.’

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘So how did you get into the PBs computer?’

‘You know that.’

‘So tell me for yourself.’

A lie is just the truth with a paint job. The less you make up the less there is to go wrong. Pete’s law. As I tell it, it becomes truth inside my head, the way the good lies do.

‘Phil Wade. I didn’t hack into his computer. I broke into his house. I wasn’t looking for anything special. I just, I don’t know, I knew he worked there, I thought I might have found something. And he has a diary, and it has stuff in it. I found something that looked like a list of passwords. Bigboy. Bigboy64. I remembered it because it sounded funny. And then I was bored, so I went on to the site, tried the remote access, used the password. It wasn’t difficult. I’m not a computer expert. I don’t know anything about hacking. You know that. You’ve seen my computer.’

‘So why him? Why Phil Wade?’ Lucinda asks the question. I’ve told you already, how she can control any situation. Well now I have to tell you how things change. How there’s something about her voice, a word catching on the way out, and a glance at Marcus, to see if he’s noticed.

‘He works for PBs.’

‘A lot of people work at PBs. I presume his is the only house you broke into. So again Pete, why him?’

There’s nothing friendly about the question. I don’t mind. I’m almost enjoying this.

‘He’s a got a kid, who goes to my school. That’s how I knew.’ A lie, as far as I know. I don’t want to tell it. I know they can check.

‘Does he?’ Marcus asks, not me, but Lucinda. She looks at me.

‘Boy or girl?’

A 50-50 chance. That’s fair.

‘Girl,’ I tell them, not hesitating. Marcus looks to Lucinda, she nods, and in my head I take my guardian angel in my hand and blow it the gentlest, most grateful of kisses. Lucinda hasn’t finished.

‘So what was the house like? How did you get in?’ She’s not convinced.

‘I don’t know. Big hedge out the front. Pool at the back. Two storeys, brick. I climbed up a drainpipe, crawled in through the toilet window.’

‘What colour’s the roof?’

‘Tile I think. I don’t remember.’

She stares at me. Doesn’t smile. Pulls out her cellphone. Dials.

‘Phil, Lucy … No … Just listen, Phil. I need an answer to this one question. It’s important. Is it possible in the last week someone broke into your house?… I see. Did she see what he looked like?… Okay, thanks.’

She hangs up, looks to Marcus, motions with her head and the two of them leave me sitting on the couch, an unopened bottle of champagne on the table in front of me. I notice my hands are shaking. I hit the keyboard, dial up the game. I’ll bluff it.

They’re gone 15 minutes. Time enough to crash four cars and lower the lap record by three seconds. I keep playing when they walk back in, don’t look up till the race is over.

‘You’re getting better,’ Marcus smiles. Lucinda’s smiling too. The cracks have been papered over, the glue is drying, the creases of truth are stretched away. She sits beside me, picks up the other control. Marcus opens the next bottle. She drives well, just like you’d expect. Tight, aggressive, concentrated. The first race she wins. The second time I can beat her, but let it go. I don’t care enough. The third race and I’m drunk. They make me make a list, of all the things I’ll spend the ad money on.